Friday, September 16, 2016

On Tuesday, Donald Trump unveiled the latest part of his Democratic governing agenda, a policy providing for six weeks of paid maternity leave – paid for, of course, by the taxpayer, and through tax deductions. He did so at the behest of his daughter Ivanka, who hangs out with conservative stalwarts like Chelsea Clinton and David Geffen. Ivanka introduced Trump, telling the sob story of a woman who had to almost murder her child in order to attend a job interview: “Out of options, she made the tragic choice to leave her young children in a hot car while she attempted to secure the job in order to better the life of her family.”

Well, she could have left the windows open. Or she could have dropped the kid with grandma. Also, where’s daddy?

But no: we’re all Democrats now.

So Trump rolled out the plan.

According to Trump’s website, “The Trump plan will enhance Unemployment Insurance (UI) to include 6 weeks of paid leave for new mothers so that they can take time off of work after having a baby.” There’s no direct mandate for employers to cover maternity leave, but this is truly just an indirect mandate: this means that employers will pay increased taxes. He says he’ll pay for this by cutting waste and fraud. Nonsense. As Ed Morrissey of Hot Air says, “The cost of this program would be another $7.5 billion in payouts from the unemployment system each year, on top of the payments already being made for actual unemployment…it’s a surrender on the principle of limited government.”